No laughing matter

BANG! POW! ZAP! Online comics come under assault from the art form's old guard.

By Damien Cave

Aug. 9, 2001 | Gary Groth read "Reinventing Comics" during the quiet dark hours when night turns into morning. The co-owner of esteemed comic book publisher Fantagraphics Books was in France, it was the summer of 2000 and his Riviera host Robert Crumb -- creator of Zap Comix and other '60s, psychedelic comic sensations -- slept soundly in a room nearby. Art Spiegelman, author of "Maus," the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, also slumbered under the same roof without concern.

But Groth stayed awake. The veteran comics critic famous for publishing, among many other "underground" titles, both "Ghost World" and "Love & Rockets" could barely believe what he was reading. "Reinventing Comics" author Scott McCloud, who had built a reputation for intelligent comic analysis with 1993's "Understanding Comics," seemed to have swallowed gallons of Internet Kool-Aid. McCloud viewed the Net, much to Groth's chagrin, as a savior. Arguing that "no art form has lived in a smaller box than comics for the last 100 years," McCloud called for a revolution. If comics artists and fans would only embrace the digital world, he argued, the Internet would soon democratize comics, open up new artistic capabilities and even spark a resurgence of interest in the form. Like "an atom waiting to be split," he wrote, the mix of comics and technology would prove powerfully explosive.

Groth figured otherwise. "He was terribly wrong," Groth says, looking back. "It was dangerous agitprop. I took notes every night about where and why I thought he was misguided."

Groth shared his grumbling with Spiegelman and Crumb, both of whom agreed that McCloud's predictions amounted to little more than half-baked evangelism masquerading as insight. Then, in the March and May issues of the Comics Journal, Groth gathered his ideas and published a scathing two-part, 10,000-word review of "Reinventing Comics."

First, he questioned McCloud's economics, slamming him for ignoring the massive media conglomeration that threatened to keep audiences and dollars away from underground comics artists. Then he turned to aesthetics. Denying that the Net's audiovisual capabilities would improve comics, he asserted that they would actually ruin the art form. Artists would inevitably turn comics into animation, undermining demand for serious works like "Maus" and creating an effects-dominated form not unlike contemporary film -- "just another loathsome reality we'd have to tolerate."

"At that point," adds Spiegelman, in an interview from his New York studio, "you're well on your way to a stage in the medium that was described by Marshall McLuhan -- the time when a new medium cannibalizes the medium it came from."

The arguments between Groth and McCloud sound a familiar chord to longtime Net watchers. On the one side, elitist defenders of a particular art form worry that the Internet will degrade and devalue the object of their adoration; on the other, passionate advocates are positive that the online revolution will spur an explosion of creativity. For every optimist like McCloud envisioning new chances for wide-open democracy there is a pessimist like Groth, sure that corporate dominance will prevail.

But the comics debate exhibits an intensity unmatched in other arenas. McCloud quickly published a strong rebuttal to Groth's review, while Groth is considering another essay on the subject and just about every comics artist, online and offline, is more than ready to jump into the fray.

Some artists argue that the intensity derives from comics' long historic relationship to paper. Without paper, how can there be true comics? Others believe that the debate is motivated by self-interest: Groth wants to protect Fantagraphics, while McCloud is seeking to establish himself as a "webcomic" visionary. Still others suggest that the comic book industry's current dire straits are to blame. Faced with a dwindling comic book readership, distribution centered on hobby shops and the depressing news that market leader Marvel is still struggling to emerge from bankruptcy, comic artists and publishers are in a vulnerable state. The Net, like a tornado heading for a trailer, is bound to have some effect, good or bad.

"It's like opera," says Steve Conley, creator of Astounding Space Thrills, a daily adventure webcomic. "The fighting is so fierce because the stakes are so small. No other industry could have this kind of debate because no other industry is so small and close-knit."

One thing is undeniable -- love it or hate it, today's webcomic scene is livelier than ever, full of energetic artists from all over the world. These artists are pushing the boundaries of the form, tackling complex, adult topics and attracting a diverse audience that rivals anything that may have existed during the heyday of the 1960s underground scene. Only a lucky few have figured out how to make any money on the Web, but for many artists, cash is less important than attention. Today's comics artists, not unlike those of the '60s, simply want to draw a crowd.

"Right now," says comics artist Demian Vogler, "webcomics are a way to get famous, not rich."

Next page: How dare you animate that comic; why, you're nothing more than a cartoonist!